Consumption‐based carbon accounting: does it have a future?

Abstract

Internationally, allocation of responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is currently based on the production-based (PB) accounting method, which measures emissions generated in the place where goods and services are produced. However, the growth of emissions embodied in trade has raised the question whether we should switch to, or amalgamate PB accounting, with other accounting approaches. Consumption-based (CB) accounting has so far emerged as the most prominent alternative. This approach accounts for emissions at the point of consumption, attributing all the emissions that occurred in the course of production and distribution to the final consumers of goods and services. This review has a fourfold objective. First, it provides an account of the logic behind attributing responsibility for emissions on the basis of consumption instead of production. Issues of equity and justice, increased emissions coverage, encouragement of cleaner production practices, and political benefits are considered. Second, it discusses the counterarguments, focusing in particular on issues of technical complexity, mitigation effectiveness, and political acceptability. Third, it presents the spectrum of implementation possibilities-ranging from the status quo to more transformative options-and considers the implications for international climate policy that would accrue under various scenarios of adopting CB accounting in practice. Fourth, it looks at how CB accounting may be adjusted to fit with current political realities and it identifies policy mechanisms that could potentially be utilized to directly or indirectly address CB emissions. Such an approach could unlock new opportunities for climate policy innovation and for climate mitigation. © 2016 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2017Change , 8:e438. doi: 10.1002 INTRODUCTIONF or nearly two decades, the international community has been struggling to find a strategy to allocate responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Equity and justice concerns have been of paramount significance in international negotiations on climate change ever since the adoption of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Underwriting the UNFCCC is the principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR), which acknowledges that countries have contributed by varying scales to the mounting problem of climate change, will be exposed to different levels of impacts, and have different capabilities (e.g., financial and technological) to mitigate emissions. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, developed countries agreed to take on legally binding emissions reduction targets for 2012, recognizing their dominant role as historic polluters. However, as emission targets by developed countries alone would evidently be insufficient to address climate change, the 2011 Durban Platform recast equity and differentiation in the climate regime by calling for a roadmap toward an agre...

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